


In The Blink of An Eye, There's a New Life In Front of My Face

by Spiesbian



Category: Spies Are Forever - Talkfine/Tin Can Brothers
Genre: Bakery AU, Depression, F/F, Fluff, M/M, Modern AU, Slow Burn, it's mostly tooth rotting sweetness, no spy shit happens yall!, tags will be updated as i go bc this is all stream of consciousness babey, touches of angst but it's not the whole story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-02-09 19:30:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18644620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiesbian/pseuds/Spiesbian
Summary: It's not that Owen is struggling with depression, it's just that he's been having problems with motivation, and getting out of bed, and going outside. He is totallyfine. A trip to the local bakery might just change everything, though.





	1. what's inside

Motivation was… hard. Owen was not good at motivation. At least not anymore. He should be doing better, right? He had a stable enough job. That was supposed to be good enough for him, right?

Owen opened his bedroom door for the first time in what must have at least been twelve hours, shuffling out. Honestly, he’d still be inside if he wasn’t so hungry. He’d start stocking it with snacks if Tatiana wouldn’t immediately catch on and kick his ass.

Dim, gritty light filtered through the kitchen window, casting a mottled shadow across counter. Owen could almost feel his energy being leeched straight out of his body. 

The bright _ding!_ of his phone's ringtone pulled him out of his head before he started circling into a negative cycle about the state of his kitchen. Fuck, he hadn’t checked it since before he’d locked himself up in his room. Owen scrambled for it, fingers almost trembling. 

**Tati:** hey bitch  
 **Tati:** im running late for work and i didnt have enough time to grab breakfast  
 **Owen:** I fail to see how this is my problem.  
 **Tati:** itll become your problem when i die of starvation and or stab someone in the neck with a fork  
 **Tati:** look, theres a bakery just down the road from the apartment, pick me up some blueberry scones and bring them over i know you have the day off  
 **Tati:** ill pay for the scones and anything you get for yourself in payment  
 **Owen:** Maybe I don't want anything.  
 **Tati:** it's a damn good bakery, youre gonna want something

Owen glanced at the time. Eleven o'clock. What else was he going to do, anyways? Wallow in his own depression? 

**Owen:** Fine. Do you want anything besides the scones?  
 **Tati:** slice of tuxedo cake please thank you so much

Normally it would have taken him another forty five minutes together the required energy to get ready and _then_ go out, but since he loved his good friend Tatiana _so_ much he got it done in ten. Maybe twenty. Friendship could only take one so far.

It took a bit more correspondance with Tatiana to figure out where exactly the bakery was, but he did it. It was a small little place, settled directly between two other buildings. The sign overhead was so faded Owen couldn’t make out what it said.

The inside wasn’t incredibly remarkable. It was small and clean, with a counter and a glass case full of various baked goods, and a single table. And… no one was behind the counter. Or anywhere, that he could tell. Owen turned to make sure that someone hadn’t just left the door unlocked. Sure enough, the sign did say open and the hours posted to the door corroborated it…

“Hello?” Owen called. 

Several metal things clashed to the ground somewhere out of sight. Someone rushed through the door that Owen assumed led to the kitchen, throwing themself into the counter. A man with brown hair that was dusted with flour nervously grinned up at him, bracing himself on one elbow. Given how the buildings across the street should have overshadowed the bakery, it should have been impossible, but Owen swore that the entire room was glowing with sunlight when he smiled. He hadn’t felt like this since…

Oh. Oh no.

“What can I get you?” He sounded slightly breathless and Owen was automatically entranced. The mildly attentive part of his brain noted the nameplate pinned to his chest that said Curt. “We’re a little understaffed today. Well. More understaffed than usual.”

Owen reluctantly stopped staring at him to answer. “I need some blueberry scones and a slice of tuxedo cake. To go.”

“Uh-huh…” Curt leaned down to put the items out of the glass case. “Anything else?”

Owen blinked. “Oh! Uh…” Tatiana _did_ say that she would cover the costs for something, and he _was_ still bitter over the ladle incident. He was nothing if not petty. “What’s the most expensive thing on your menu?”

Curt gave him an odd look as he put the scones into a paper bag. “Well, today that would be a slice of french silk.”

“Great. I’ll take that.”

Panic was starting to set in. Owen could not be here, not when his heart was skipping every other beat and his ears were burning. But he did also need those scones for Tatiana, so he was trapped.

“Alrighty, here you go.” Curt set the paper bag and two boxes down in front of Owen. “That'll be-”

“I already did the math.” Owen blurted out, setting down the cash he'd nearly dropped trying to get it out of his wallet. “Thanks.”

“Uh, okay, come again?”

“Yea, maybe.” Owen scooped up the baked goods and practically ran out of the bakery.

With his frantic pace, it only took him thirty minutes to walk to the garden center where Tatiana worked. Owen stalked through the aisles of plants until he found her watering a section of phlox.

“Ah, you _did_ get out of bed this morning.” Tatiana smiled at him. “I was wondering if you were going to show up at all.”

“I'm not that bad of a friend.” Shit, was his voice really that shaky?

“It's more of lunch than breakfast now, but better late than never.” The grin slowly morphed into a frown. “You sound like shit.”

“Well, I feel like shit.”

Tatiana rolled her eyes. “Come on, we can talk about it during my _lunch break_ since you took so long.”

She guided him to a patio area, sitting down at one of the tables and gesturing with one arm. “Give me my scones and I'll give you the money.” He set down the paper bag and the box containing the tuxedo cake. “What did you get?”

“French silk pie, or something.” Owen scowled when she raised an eyebrow at him. “I just wanted to try something new, okay?”

“Wow, you really must feel like shit. You're acting stranger than when you got turned away for your last audition.”

“We don't _talk_ about that anymore, Tatiana.” As if he didn't have enough shit on his mind already. “I don't know, I saw this guy at the bakery and I knew that if I didn't get out of there fast I was going to become… _obvious_ and I'm still kind of frazzled.”

She squinted. “Hm. You didn't act strange during your desperate attempt at escape, did you?”

“...Oh my god.”

Tatiana smiled again, this time with more of a devilish edge. “That's what I thought.”

“I'm useless. I'm absolutely useless.”

“That you are. I assume the man you met was Curt, yes?”

“Yea, actually. How'd you know?”

“I've only ever seen two people working at that place.” She popped open the box, pulling a plastic wrapped disposable fork from her pocket. Why the hell did she have that? “One is Curt and the other is a woman named Barb, and I assumed they didn't hire anyone new.”

“You really go there that often?”

“At least once a week.” Tatiana pulled out another disposable fork. _Why the hell did she have more than one?_ “Would you like one for your pie?”

“Sure.” He accepted the fork from her.

“You should go back and talk to him. It’s not the busiest place.”

Owen rolled his eyes as he opened his own box. “Sure, like I won’t immediately embarrass myself. I think I’ll pass.”

“Suit yourself.” Tatiana shrugged. “I’m just trying to get you to go outside more than just work.”

He just made a noncommittal noise. Owen was fine. He went outside today, afterall. That was probably enough vitamin D until he went back to work. He didn’t know what Tatiana was complaining about, going out for work was more than enough to keep him going. Well, whatever, he didn’t need to justify his own actions. Owen stabbed the slice of pie in front of him a bit more aggressively than necessarily with the fork and took a bite.

Holy shit.


	2. preheat oven to 350 degrees F

Owen had told himself he was t going to go back to that bakery, not after he practically embarrassed himself. But there he was, standing in front of the door and staring at the handle as if that would make it disappear and he had an excuse to go home. That pie was _really_ good though. Like, best thing he'd ever tasted kind of good. 

He grit his teeth and pushed his way through the door. The inside of the bakery looked the same, but it felt different somehow. Shimmery, if that made any sense. No one was at the counter just like last time as well.

“Hello?” Who was Owen to interrupt the time loop the universe decided to stick him into?

Lo and behold, a familiar figure came scrambling out of the kitchen. This time, however, he almost came careening over the counter and narrowly managed to snag onto the lapels of Owen's jacket before he face planted into the floor. “Um. Hi.”

Oh, Christ, he was close. Owen could make out every detail in his eyes, see the spattering of chocolate under one eye that could easily be mistaken for freckles from any further distance.

He came to his senses all at once, grabbing Curt by the wrists and placing him back to the other side of the counter. “Understaffed again?”

“Yea well my employee had a family emergency and without her I don't have anyone to run up front while I work in the kitchen. You can either make fun of me and leave or you can buy some shit.”

“Right, right. Uh, that thing you sold me the other day…?”

“French silk,” Curt filled in.

“Yes, that. I kind of wanted to get some more.”

“Sorry buddy.” He rested on one elbow. “That's a specialty item. We only stock it like, once a month and I sold out yesterday.”

“Really?”

“Well, yea, you’ve got to make sure that all your ingredients are cold otherwise the texture isn’t right and because that includes butter it fucks with the mixer, and then you have to add one egg at a time five minutes apart which is weird but y’know I have other stuff to bake and-” Curt stopped. “I’m sorry, I’m rambling.”

“No, it's fine.” Owen glanced at the glass case. “So you made… _all_ of that?”

“Well not all, Barb pitches in a bit especially on stuff like cookies, but otherwise yea. I did make most of that stuff.”

“How do you do it?”

“By not having a life?” Curt laughed awkwardly. “I have more time when Barb is here.”

It took Owen a couple extra seconds to stop looping that little bit of laughter in his head like a sound bite. “Well, um, is there anything you suggest?”

“Well, if you really want pie, I made some key lime. It’s a lot easier, you just throw shit in the mixer and you’re done. But if you’re in the mood for something sweeter we have some killer chocolate chip cookies.”

“I’ll take both, I guess.”

Curt raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“Yup.” Owen kind of panicked. One was probably enough, but it had just slipped out and now he was going on a shitty mental down spiral and he needed to pull himself out of this before he had a nervous breakdown in front of Curt. 

“I mean hey, I’m not one to judge especially when you’re buying.” Curt turned to the glass case. “Here or to go?”

“To go, please.” Owen was going to spontaneously combust if he stayed here much longer.

He put the slice of pie into a white box and the cookies into a paper bag. Curt grinned as he handed them across the counter. “That’ll be twenty eight fifty six.”

“Thank you.” He tried his best to not run out the door.

* * *

“You are a _disaster_.”

“I know, I know!” Owen paced, raking his hands through his hair and pacing around his apartment. “I don’t know why I’m like this!”

Tatiana looked at him sympathetically. “Owen…”

“I keep freaking out, and I don’t really know how I actually _feel_ , like what if this is all platonic and I’m just an idiot?” He started hyperventilating. “God, I am. I’m setting myself up for failure just like everything else in my life and now-”

“Owen!” Tatiana grabbed his shoulders, locking eyes with him. “You have to calm down.”

“I’m so stupid.”

“No, you’re not.” She guided him to the couch. They sat down, Owen immediately curling up into her side. “It’s just a little nervousness. I’m sorry I called you a disaster.”

He didn’t speak. He just gathered up a handful of her cardigan as she stroked his hair. Later, they would put on a movie and just try to forget about everything that had happened. But for now, they just sat together as if they could protect each other from the rest of the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey yall this is short and really late but idrk what to tell you. i'm just having some fun out here
> 
> my saf tumblr is @spiesbian 
> 
> Kudos are great but comments are even better

**Author's Note:**

> so this ISN'T a waitress au (i don't like making waitress aus in which the main cast isn't women), but the chapter titles probably are gonna have a bunch of waitress references. Also the title. I might change the title later bc i'm not sure about it but Shrug. Who knows
> 
> Catch my saf blog on tumblr @spiesbian
> 
> Kudos are amazing but comments are even better


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